Privilege is the word for the advantages that accrue to membership in a dominant group — advantages so woven into the ordinary texture of experience that they are invisible to those who hold them and visible in relief to those who do not. To acknowledge privilege is not an act of self-flagellation but of epistemic accuracy: a recognition that your experience of the world has been shaped by factors that are not universal and that your understanding of what is normal, difficult, or possible will reflect that shaping. The acknowledgment is the beginning of the conversation, not its conclusion.
Each step builds on the last.